Day 6: Create international relations and make new friends

I've always been interested in international relations, especially when concerning women's rights and libraries (either separately or together). So, I've become involved with different international organizations, both nationally and locally. One organization is called the Columbus International Program. They bring in professionals from different countries to come to the Columbus area for training and learning, and then they go back to their countries, bringing along new ideas.

This week, the Columbus International Program happened to bring in professional librarians from Kyrgyzstan! Since I work at a library, they contacted me to see if they could come visit my library. I know I'm bragging, but our library is one of the best in Ohio. So I passed their information on to the library's director and we set up a day and time for them to come.

That day was today! I did not have to be any more involved than connecting the program with the right people in the library, but I ended up staying with them the entire time, helping our director with a presentation and a tour. It was wonderful! I was able to help the librarians learn about our library, gain new ideas for theirs, and I made some new friends. One of the librarians, Aika, told me all about her library. She was so proud of it and what they are doing. It was wonderful to hear her pride and excitement. She works at the American Corners & Centers in Kyrgyzstan and she asked me to like them on facebook. I just did! And she would love to do a webchat with me from her library sometime. And so would I!

Not only was this fun for me, it also helped me be more visible to my director, I was able to catch up with my contacts in the international world, I got to make new international friends, and I got to help out international librarians. Win-win-win! It was great. Just goes to show what saying yes can do. I was nervous, but in the end it was a great decision.

They also gave me a pin with our flag and theirs :) Thanks, new friends!